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The Obama administration and two states have given notice of plans to appeal a federal judge's order that restored legal protection to gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region. Michigan filed an appeal document Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., a day after Wisconsin did so. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filed notices earlier this month, although a spokeswoman said a final decision on whether to pursue the case would be made by the Department of Justice. Either way, "the science clearly shows that wolves are recovered in the Great Lakes region, and we believe the Great Lakes states have clearly demonstrated their ability to...

The Obama administration and two states have given notice of plans to appeal a federal judge's order that restored legal protection to gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region. Michigan filed an appeal document Friday with the U.S. Circuit Court of...

Threatened animals like elephants, porpoises and lions grab all the headlines, but what's happening to monarch butterflies is nothing short of a massacre. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service summed it up in just one grim statistic on Monday: Since 1990,...

Gray wolves in Wyoming and three Great Lakes states would lose court-ordered protection under legislation proposed in Congress, the latest offensive in a 12-year battle over whether the predator species is secure enough to allow hunting and trapping or...

Gray wolves in the western Great Lakes region are protected by federal law once more.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is publishing a rule Friday designating wolves in Michigan and Wisconsin as "endangered" and those in...

Working late in a tiny Arkansas lab, Susan Wilde found herself alone with a killer.
It startled her. She jumped, let out a yelp, and took off down a hall. Wilde wasn't running for her life; she was amazed by a discovery. She had uncovered a bacteria, one...

Pioneer Press features one (or more) of Brookfield Zoo’s animals each month with some background information about the animal, its species, its family and its connection to the zoo. This month is the snow leopard, which lives in The Fragile Kingdom...

"If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news. But that is happening in the great outdoors."
— Ken Norris, director of science at the Zoological Society of London, to The Guardian
Now relocate Ken Norris'...

One day before he is set to leave office, Gov. Pat Quinn vetoed legislation Sunday that would have allowed bobcat hunting in Illinois for the first time in 40 years.
The measure would have amended the wildlife code to allow hunters to kill one bobcat...

The bobcat was on Illinois' threatened species list from 1977 to 1999.
Five years ago, amateur photographer David Horning was driving along a gravel country road in southern Illinois when the sight of a bobcat with a rabbit clenched in his teeth...

A judge restored federal protections to gray wolves in the the western Great Lakes region on Friday, reversing an earlier decision by the federal government to remove the animals from the endangered species list.
In a sharply worded 111-page ruling, U.S....

Every November and December, pet owners get the same reminder: There are certain holiday staples — chocolates, potpourri, tinsel — that can be dangerous to their animals' health.
But one threat that goes largely unnoticed is the plastic bags that...

News of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's interest in building an outdoor concert venue in Naperville has mobilized residents of a nearby neighborhood who say adjacent land is a haven for wildlife that should be protected.
Holding concerts on the land...

This may be remembered as the Year of the Prairie Chicken.
A project to replenish Illinois' prairie chicken population is going well so far, conservationists say, despite being pulled into the political fray earlier this summer. The three-year effort...

The hulking animals that stepped from trailers to corrals here late at night drew a hushed, attentive audience of about 25 people.
The reason for the reverence: wild bison have been reintroduced on the prairies east of the Mississippi River for the first...

Nobody is sure who saw it first.
A handful of National Park Service employees think they were among the first, in early October.
A turkey hunter snapped a fuzzy photo of it as the animal moved through a large open meadow surrounded by dense conifer...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday proposed listing the African lion as threatened after a study showed the big cats were in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday proposed listing...

Whether you're a bird enthusiast or not, you will be fascinated by the new website All About Bird Biology.
The product of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the site features interactive activities to help kids and adults learn about birds' feathers,...

Conservation organizations on Wednesday sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force it to complete a long overdue, legally required recovery plan for the Mexican gray wolf, the lobo of Southwestern lore.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court...

The past four decades have not been very good ones for the world's animals.
Since 1970, the populations of vertebrate species have declined by more than 50 percent. For kids, that means there are half as many mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish...